Over 60 dead, 200 injured in Quetta blast

photo from jafrianews.com

QUETTA (PAN): More than 60 people were killed and over 200 others wounded in a massive bombing in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Saturday evening, officials and witnesses said.

The explosion happened on the Kirani Road in Quetta, the provincial capital, a senior police officer told reporters. Several women and children were among the casualties, he said.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Wazir Khan Nasir, calling it a sectarian attack, said the explosives had been placed in a rickshaw which went off near a Hazara-dominated neighbourhood. He put the toll at 63 dead and more than 200 injured.

City police chief, Mir Zubair Mehmud, told Pajhwok Afghan News feared the number of fatalities could go up, given the critical condition of many injured people. The casualties were evacuated to Combined Military Hospital and Bolan Medical Complex.

Following the huge blast, gunshots rang out for quite some time in the densely-populated locality, according to one witness, who claimed the site was littered with body parts and pools of blood.

Initial reports suggested many of the victims belonged to the minority Hazara community. Angry members of the tribe pelted police and paramilitary troops with stones, preventing them from shifting the dead and injured from the scene.

Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani said the bomb was planted near a double-storey building close to a market that collapsed as a result of the impact, trapping a number of people, who had come for shopping.

Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen, a group of Shia Muslims, announced three days of mourning over the horrific incident and gave a strike call in Quetta for Sunday. Shiites took to the streets, blocking roads, torching tyres and firing into the air.

Last month, 93 people -- most of them Hazaras -- were killed in a string of bombings on Alamdar road in Quetta, sparking a storm of protests in different parts of Pakistan. The outlawed militant group, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Bowing to mounting political and public pressure, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf sacked the provincial government and imposed governor’s rule in the province, bordering Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

from Pajhwok
By Hijratullah Kharoti Feb 16, 2013 - 22:10
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 some other news sites versions about the dead/injured and about the bomb:

ARY NEWS - 64/180 - rickshaw

The Express Tribune - 64/157 - parked vehicle

GEO.TV - 65/180 - water tanker

Posted in: Balochistan, Balochistan Pakistan, Hazara, Pakistan, QUETTA, Shia Islam